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Is London ready for the 2012 Olympics

#31. Nothing to do in Joburg besides… go to London for a few days, and post my blog from the Apple store in Regent Street (which by the way is busier on an average day than Hyde Park Exclusive Book’s opening sale day — with broadband the norm rather than the exception the Apple store has replaced the “internet cafe”).

Well the first part is not strictly true, there is plenty to do in Joburg but London was calling. We landed at Heathrow at 6.30am (early), spent 30 minutes waiting for permission to exit the plane and another 25 having our passports stamped and then one hour waiting for baggage at the carousel. To which my ever-ready-with-a-quip assistant responded: “Do you think London is ready for 2012?”.It’s the kind of remark you hear all the time in Joburg. A 10-car pileup on the M1. Your cappucino arrives cold. A taxi cuts you off on Jan Smuts Avenue, nearly forcing your car onto the grassy verge at the zoo lake (twice in one day). And you respond: “Do you think we are ready to host a world cup in 2010?” Bad service, a long queue, potholes, the list goes on but I am not sure that anything on it will prevent us from hosting the soccer world cup.

As for London the billboards are already up shouting out that this is the host city of the 2012 Summer Olympic Games, and there are even people on Oxford Street outside the Adidas store handing out flyers to this effect. There is only one small hitch. The sky is as dark as ever and has been since we landed while Londoners walk around in T-shirts and shorts, and skimpy dresses and sandals believing that this is summer because the temperature has hit 19 degrees. They may have to just settle for calling them the Games.